Knee arthroplasty procedures generally require resection or cutting of both a femur at its distal end and a tibia at its proximal end. These resections or cuts are conventionally accomplished with the aid of a set of cutting blocks that guide and direct cutting at a desired location and orientation. Current knee arthroplasty systems typically require several different cutting blocks to guide and direct the cutting of the distal femur and proximal tibia of both of a patient's right and left legs. Some knee arthroplasty systems require additional sets of instruments to accommodate different sizes and different orientations, angles and adjustments. Consequently, some knee arthroplasty systems configured to provide cutting blocks to meet each of these design requirements include a significant number of cutting blocks. Even some systems that include cutting blocks used for more than one of these purposes could be improved by meeting more of the purposes and requirements via a smaller number of cutting blocks.
Distal femoral and proximal tibial cutting blocks can add significantly to the overall number of instruments included in a knee arthroplasty system instrument set. Large instrument sets are expensive to manufacture, expensive to ship, cumbersome to handle, time and cost intensive to clean and sterilize, and may be more complicated to learn how to effectively use. A single cutting block or a reduced number of cutting blocks and related techniques that are capable of providing guidance and direction of cutting of both the distal femur and proximal tibia of either of a patient's right leg or left leg could therefore reduce costs and improve overall efficiency.